The Texas Republican wouldn’t commit to voting for aid for the country fending off Russian President Vladimir Putin’s army — or say whether there would need to be a financial offset to get his support — but argued that neither this nor conservative calls for military exercises are the right approach.

“More important than aid is expanding economic trade — expanding mutually beneficial commerce, helping open the door for energy to flow to Ukraine in the private market,” Cruz said, speaking exclusively to POLITICO after addressing AIPAC’s Texas delegation Tuesday afternoon.

He said Russia should be kicked out of the G-8, but that the United States shouldn’t wait on its allies for further action. That includes, Cruz said, re-initiating plans to move forward with the missile defense system in Europe, which Obama scaled back while in earlier discussions with Russia.

The crisis in Ukraine, he said, proves that his vision of Republican foreign policy is the right one, for both the GOP and the country — and is “very much the same as Ronald Reagan’s,” invoking the former president, as he often does.

He rejected the idea of choosing between the interventionism and isolationism that have become the two poles within the Republican Party — two sharply different visions which are represented in his mind, respectively, by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.).

“My foreign policy views are different from both of them, and I would suggest [those views] represent a third point on the triangle,” Cruz said. “I agree with John McCain that we should be a voice for freedom, but I agree with Rand Paul that we should be exceedingly reluctant to employ U.S. military force. That being said, we have a military for a reason—it is to protect our national security.”

“If we are to employ military force, it should be guided by the central touchstone of U.S. national security interests,” Cruz said. “And if we are called to use military force, we should have a clear, defined objective, we should go in with overwhelming force, and then we should get the heck out. I don’t think it’s the job of the military to engage in nation building, to endeavor to build democratic utopias across the face of the earth. “

“There is an important U.S. interest in standing with Ukraine. Ukraine wants to stand free and with the West, and Europe, with America, and it is in our interest to speak out in defense of freedom,” he said. “And speaking out matters, by the way.”

Cruz criticized President Barack Obama for what he said was five years of showing weakness toward Putin and abandoning international allies, arguing that the president should have had stronger policies and stronger support for the people who’ve fought against repressive government in Ukraine, Venezuela and beyond.

“Ukraine began as a power play when the government was poised to move into the West, into Europe, and Putin pulled them back,” Cruz said. “Our support should have been unequivocal at the time — and at this point, when Russian tanks massed on the borders of the Crimean peninsula and then began to move in, the response of the United States was muddled and equivocal, which gave Putin no reason to fear meaningful consequences.”